Knoxville Tennessee Blog

Volunteer Princess Cruises LLC has a 96-foot yacht, Volunteer Princess, that can be rented by businesses, organizations, families, fans and just about anybody interested in cruising Knoxville’s waterways. Walter LeMasurier, president of the company, estimated the craft’s cost at more than $2 million. The Volunteer Princess was constructed in Wisconsin by SkipperLiner and can accommodate 149 passengers.

I haven’t had the privilege of taking a cruise on the yacht but maybe someone will invite me in the near future. I did however take the picture above while I was on the Tennessee River Boat today for mother’s day. The river boat made for a nice afternoon and tomorrow I plan on writing a review of my experience on that ship.

The Volunteer Princess is setup very similar to the Tennessee River Boat for public voyages. The public voyages include special events like the mother’s day lunch outing as well as a Sunday Champagne Brunch Cruise (Adults: $35.00 Children under 10: $17.50) and a Thursday Night Dinner Cruise (Adults: $50.00 Children under 10: $25.00). But, the Volunteer Princess is by far the most unique and luxurious boat in Knoxville which makes it ideal for private parties. This boat is definitely the eye candy of Volunteer Landing marina. I wonder if they auction the boat to the highest bidder for Boomsday.

Don’t forget about the Tax free weekend coming up. If you need to buy clothing or computers, this weekend is the time to do that. For all of the details visit the official 2007 Sales Tax Holiday website.

Special Telephone Hours: April 28, 2007 - 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Central
and April 29, 2007 - 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Central

More information? Call (800) 342-1003 or e-mail Salestax.holiday@state.tn.us

I would love to tell you that AM PM Movers are paying me to write this post but they aren’t. I have moved with the Knoxville branch of the company twice and recommended them to friends and family several more times. If you are moving to the Knoxville area from out of state or if you are moving down the block you will most definitely want to give AM PM Movers a call.

I am recommending AM PM movers for the following reasons:

1. They are a small local Knoxville company (franchise) with friendly Knoxville employees who aim to please.

2. They are willing to negotiate a price for the move that is reasonable for them and affordable for you.

3. They take care of your junk. They have a sticker inventory system to ensure every piece they move shows up at your destination. In two moves with AM PM, they didn’t break, damage, or lose a single item nor did they damage any part of either house. (Contrast this with the Refrigerator movers who had one item to move and dented my foyer wall).

4. They come on short notice. I had a moving company back out on me the night before a move. AM PM drove 500+ miles over night to be at my door the next day.

It can be scary trying to find a moving company that will do the job well and take care of your furniture and belongings. I was lucky enough to find this company several years ago and will call on them for every move that I make because of the great service I have received on both moves.

I hope this is helpful the next time you plan to make a move. Please feel free to leave a comment and share your story (good or bad) if you have used AM PM movers or a different Knoxville based moving company.

AM PM Moving Company Phone Numbers:
(Knoxville Address - 4437 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN)

Asheville- (828) 254-5454

Chattanooga- (423) 894-8283

Cookeville- (931) 526-1677

Crossville- (931) 707-1799

Greeneville- (423) 638-4379

Morristown- (423) 318-9300

Tri-Cities- (423) 230-0003

Knoxville- (865) 212-3328

toll free: 1-800-560-1215

Rikki Hall of the Metropulse has written an important and revealing column on the challenge of stormwater in Knox County. This follows Mondays Betty Bean column in the Halls Shopper News that also confronts Knox County Commission on the new stormwater ordinance.

The simple issue at hand is whether developers should put in stormwater pipes that will last for many decades or put in pipes that may only last a few decades. 

When stormwater piping is replaced either property owners or taxpayers have to pay the tab. Developers like Victor Jernigan express their viewpoint that putting in concrete stormwater piping cost too much. In last months Knox County Commission meeting  Jernigan said that a $1000 cost for the developer would result in a $5000 expense for the homeowner. Seems like a high profit margin but not only did Jernigan use this example but so did another developer in this past Monday’s stormwater workshop. 

In fact this has become the manta of the development community. I think the example is all wet as there is no way developers make a 80 percent profit margin. But it does reveal the mindset of the development community in Knox County. 

Toothless ordinances are merely a subsidy for developers that create a transfer cost to property owners and taxpayers. Complicating the matter are Knox County Commissioners like Lumpy Lambert that are trying to preserve the materials like corrugated metal piping and plastic piping that simply do not last as long as concrete. In Monday’s stormwater meeting Commissioner Lambert incorrectly told the audience that mandating concrete stormwater piping would create a monopoly. He was quickly corrected by Joe Simpson of Sherman Dixie Concrete Industries in Chattanooga who informed Commissioner Lambert that their competitor in London, Ky gets plenty of business in East Tennessee. 

This is simple, do you want to continue the subsidy for developers that requires taxpayers and property owners to pay for stormwater pipe replacement 15 years down the road or do you want Knox County Commission to require concrete piping for stormwater? 

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Marriott International will double the size of its Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley business services headquarters to 500 employees. To accommodate the expansion, the company has signed a lease on an additional 50,000 square foot building now under construction next door to its current facilities.

The new, $6.9 building, owned by Stock Creek Partnership, is scheduled for completion in May.

via Expansion Management

More from Knoxville News Business Journal Here

Michael Silence has two wonderful links on his blog today. The first is the Ebay auction to win a ride on Dollywood’s Mystery Mine and the second is a possible announcement that a Costco store could be coming to Knoxville.

More details of the ebay auction:

The starting bid is US $500.00. All of the proceeds of the final sale price will support The Dollywood Foundation and the winner will receive:

Tickets to Dollywood for the winner and a guest for Friday, April 13, 2007 and Saturday, April 14, 2007.
Participation and VIP seating for the Media Day activities at Dollywood at 9:00 AM on Friday, April 13, 2007
1 of 56 seats on the first official ride cycle of Mystery Mine at Dollywood on Friday, April 13, 2007
A photo with Dolly Parton
A framed display featuring an image of your ride, a signed photo with Dolly and other Mystery Mine memorabilia to commemorate your historical place as one of the first official riders of the Mystery Mine.

More details of the Costco link:

Costco is currently looking at the possibility of expanding into more than 300 different areas across the US and is planning to open between 30-40 new stores a year. Knoxville is on the list of places that Costco is considering and hopefully they will view the Knoxville and surrounding markets as a worthwhile investment. Having moved from a state where there are an abundance of Costco stores, I can tell you that they are a wonderful change from the boredom of Sam’s Club. Plus, Knoxville residents have the added bonus of Costco bringing new competition to Sam’s Club. Then we’ll only need to add a BJ’s Wholesale Club and Knoxville will be all set.

Thank you Mr. Silence for doing a wonderful job in the blogosphere as usual and for bringing these links to our attention.

The Knox News Sentinel has featured articles about Baptist Hospital for the past 2 days and we can only hope that this means Baptist is ready to throw up the white flag and make peace with its enemies.

Baptist Hospital has an ongoing feud with Covenant and other local health care providers that has hindered the growth of the hospital and hurt Baptist financially. I have been following the news coverage closely because it would be a huge loss for the Knoxville community if Baptist Hospital files for Bankruptcy.

Baptist Hospital has wonderful facilities and a lot of wonderful ammenities to offer the Knoxville community but has struggled to attract potential customers/patients because the hospital is an out-of-network location for most of the local insurance plans, like Covenant’s Cariten. The patients that visit Baptist Hospital typically fall in love with the staff and facilities, but most Knoxville residents won’t even consider visiting the hospital due to the lack of insurance coverage as noted in the following excerpt from yesterday’s News Sentinel article.

Baptist is not the worst situation James has seen. She said Baptist continues to have a great reputation and great programs as well as a lot of support and a tremendous amount of loyalty. In coming days, James said she plans to make courtesy calls to senior health-care leaders in town as part of a longer-term solution. “It’s fair to say that in my very short tenure here that the organization has the need to both cultivate some allies as well as mend some fences in the community overall,” James said.

The article that appeared in today’s paper highlighted on the financial difficulties that Baptist has faced and the appointment of two replacement administrators for the hospitals operating staff. Hopefully these new officials will be able to lead Baptist to a long and prosperous future, something that has been a difficult challenge for the previous leadership.

For those interested, the following is a short list of Knoxville area Hospitals:

Baptist Hospital of East Tennessee
137 Blount Ave.
Knoxville, TN 37920
865-632-5011
www.baptistoneword.org

Baptist Hospital West
10820 Parkside Drive
Knoxville, TN 37922
865-218-7011
www.baptistoneword.org

East TN Children’s Hospital
2018 W. Clinch Ave.
Knoxville, TN 37916
865-541-8000
www.etch.com

Fort Sanders Park West Medical Center
9352 Parkwest Blvd.
Knoxville, TN 37923
865-693-5151
www.yesparkwest.com

Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center
1901 Clinch Ave.
Knoxville, TN 37916
865-541-1111
www.fsregional.com

St. Mary’s Medical Center
900 E Oak Hill Ave.
Knoxville, TN 37917
865-545-8000
www.mercy.com

University of Tennessee Medical Center
1924 Alcoa Hwy.
Knoxville, TN 37929
865-544-9000
www.utmedicalcenter.org

Last week it was reported by the News Sentinel that the University of Tennessee is ranked fourth in the nation for illegal downloads. The latest news, as reported by yahoo.com, is that the RIAA is going to send out settlement offers to University of Tennessee students before they are sued.

This is yet another example of the RIAA wasting time and money harassing individuals. You remember the report a few years back of a 12 year old girl being sued by the RIAA. Since then the RIAA has realized that it probably isn’t getting good publicity targeting minors so they decided to hit up that devious college crowd. Plus they have an added insurance policy if the university is a government institution. Worse case, they are probably figuring for a big settlement from the government (ie tax money).

The reality is that suing individuals does not fix the problem. There are an abundance of anonymous ways to transfer music across the Internet. Consider Filetopia, an old but slick software package that offers anonymous file transfer and servers that are overseas outside of US jurisdiction. If the RIAA is serious about curbing the p2p file transfer scene (which I am doubtful is even possible) they need to find ways to encourage people to buy music legitimately rather than trying to discourage them through lawsuits.

I have been keeping up with the recent “Exclusive Hussein Uranium News” from TerryFrank.net and I thought it would be a good time to weigh in after more details have surfaced with regards to Frank’s source. If you haven’t been following this story let me get you up to speed with these links. It all started with this post claiming documents that proved Saddam had over 1 million pounds of Uranium. And then there was this follow up post. Next was her appearance on Tennessee This Week and finally her most recent post which can be read here.

If I cared about how much, if any, Uranium Saddam had in Iraq (which I don’t) I would have a few questions for Terry. The first would be why bring this about through your blog as opposed to traditional media? If you really only cared about bringing this to the attention of the public, why would you not contact the Knox News Sentinel or WBIR and report your findings through traditional media which has a much broader audience then your blog.

My next question would be, why would you dedicate an entire post to calling another person rude and incompetent simply because he questioned the authenticity of your claims, even though you provided no supporting evidence? My thought is that any person who would be willing to accept your claim without requesting further evidence would be the incompetent person.

Now for those who don’t believe Frank’s claims I would only suggest that we do live in the Oak Ridge area and after hearing the interview on Tennessee This Week it sounds as though this information is available due to some training that has taken place, which was intended to help safely remove the material from Iraq. This seems like a very plausible story since folks in Oak Ridge would be very familiar with how to handle Uranium.

Terry’s claims are believable but you won’t find me repeating them unless I saw the documents first hand. Even if the claims are true it seems like a mute point this late in the game.

Following the Ipix Corporation bankruptcy case makes me wonder how much money an individual can make by creating a company, finding investors and later, after due time, filing for bankruptcy.

The case ended a few days ago but from reading the various news articles on the auction 2 of the 3 bidding parties were formed by Ipix executives. The company listed debts of $7.87 million and had about $3.5 million in cash.

The two companies (Luminetx and Argusight) with Ipix executives were bidding less than a million dollars for the patents and technology that were up for auction until an anonymous bidder pushed the price up to $2 million and later $3 million. The anonymous bidder ended up winning the auction for $3.6 million much to the dismay of former Ipix executives. The creditors are much happier with the auction price and will probably break even after adding in the $3.5 million from Ipix Corp.’s bank accounts.

What I find astounding is that executives can take huge salaries while the company they are running goes bankrupt paying for the development of technologies and patents. Then they can form a new company and buy the technology and patents with the money they made as executive officers, of the now bankrupt company, minus the cost of development.

What does this amount to? Stealing. I guess theft is the risk you take when you invest money in a business that you don’t control.

UPDATE: Sony bought IPIX.

References:

knoxnews.com
knoxnews.com
knoxnews.com
panotools.info
knoxnews.com
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knoxnews.com